By Tim Reid
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The top U.S. cybersecurity official fired by Republican President Donald Trump for saying the Nov. 3 election was the most secure in American history said on Friday voter fraud allegations made by Trump and his allies are “farcical”.
Chris Krebs, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the CBS 60 Minutes program that allegations of U.S. voting machines being manipulated by foreign countries were baseless.
Sidney Powell, a Trump attorney cut loose by the Trump legal team this week, had put forward a conspiracy theory that election systems created in Venezuela at the behest of the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez helped tip the U.S. election to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.
She and others have also alleged that voting machines had flipped votes from Trump to Biden and some U.S. voting information was stored on servers in Germany.
“All votes in the Unites States of America are counted in the United States of America. Period,” Krebs said, in an excerpt broadcast on CBS Evening News. The full 60 Minutes interview will air on Sunday. Krebs was fired by Trump on Nov. 17 after calling the election the “most secure in American history.”
“There’s no evidence that any machine that I’m aware of has been manipulated by a foreign power,” Krebs said, calling such allegations “farcical claims.” He added: “The American people should have 100% confidence in their vote.”
Biden won the election with 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232. He leads Trump by over six million in the popular vote.
Trump and his lawyers continue to allege, without evidence, that the election was stolen through widespread fraud and Trump is the winner. Trump said on Thursday he will leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for Biden.
(Reporting by Tim Reid; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
